Tag Archives: Rin Tin Tin

Jake

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Jake might have been the finest dog I never met.

There are so many amazing dogs I’ve never met;

I have great admiration for the feats of Rin Tin Tin, Lassie, Sergeant Preston’s King, Flash the parachuting dog in The Flaming Signal (1933), and Smokey & Shadow the faster-than-a-speeding-bullet Alsatians in Sign of the Wolf (1941).

I empathize with Nick & Nora’s Asta, Frasier’s Eddie, and Red’s Rover…they have to endure much and they endure it with good humor.

I root for Lady’s Tramp (successfully) and Ol’ Yeller (not so successfully).

I fret over the uncertain fate of Flic and Umberto D. (rip yer heart and show it to you before you die).

I laugh out loud at Goofy, Pluto, and Odie.

Benji, the Shaggy Dog, and all 101 of those Dalmatians…well, maybe not so much…but they’re cute, I guess.

But they’re not real dogs. I mean some of them are real dogs, but none of them are REAL DOGS.

<< side note >>

Didja know that the Shaggy Dog was played (uncredited) by a dog named “Chiffon”? Chiffon needed a better agent.

<< end of side note >>

I think Jake was a real dog

Jake belonged to a friend of mine who doesn’t live in Lexington. She posted pictures and escapades and gripes about Jake for several years. Through her postings I felt like I knew the critter and he was a fine one.

I knew of his dietary lack of discrimination. “If I can chew it and pass it, it’s food.”

I knew of his utter and violent defiance of screen doors. This stemmed from his belief that if aliens (or Russians) wanted to infiltrate our country, they would come disguised as screen doors.

I recognized (from afar…far far afar) his olfactory ability to locate patches of otherwise unidentifiable dead things (Charnel No. 5), and roll with vigor, applying them liberally until said olfactory abilities had been obliterated.

Now that is a REAL DOG.
That is a dog’s dog.
I’m a fan.

We need real dogs right now to take us out of ourselves for a bit and away from TV news for a bit and away from infiltrating screen doors disguised as presidents for…ever.

We need real dogs right now to fret over, instead of whether the next box of cereal might kill us. We also need elected officials that give us real facts and real comfort…and that actually seem to care about real people.

In Kentucky, we seem to have a governor matches that description. Check.

And we have each other. Check.

And we have our fine dogs. Check.

Jake was one fine dog. There’s not much better to be.
And I never even met the guy.

Chiffon

Sigh…

Sign of the Wolf – 67 Year Old Spoiler Alert

Movies, , , , , ,

Once upon a movie night!

Janie and I have been binge-watching GAME OF THRONES and our raggedy dog Chloe has been joining us. Chloe is quite taken with the wolves in the series and is now demanding to be referred to as our “dire” pup.

Whatever.

She’s good company though, so I’m trying to nurture her new-found cinematic interest. I allowed her to choose our film one night.

Unsurprisingly, she chose a 1941 Rin Tin Tin/Lassie wannabe; Sign of the Wolf.
The title is totally misleading. There are no wolves in the film – not one – zilch – nada.

There are however, not one but two big athletic Alsatian Shepherds named Smokey and Shadow. And if you think about it, that makes a kind of sense. You can’t reasonably expect any one dog to replace Rin Tin Tin or Lassie and to be perfectly honest about it, Smokey and Shadow combined are not really up to the mark either. Oh sure, they can climb walls and fences. They can jump hurdles. They can survive plane crashes. They’re faster than a speeding bullet. For real! They actually seem to outrun the dozens of rifle shots taken at them in this flick – it’s uncanny…and un-canine. The dogs do all these things in the film. To quote that great philosopher, Groucho Marx; “It’s a hell of an act!” But in the personality department, they are sadly lacking. It doesn’t help that they spend most of the film running around in dirty snow. How charming would you be? In my world, the only thing worse than snow is dirty snow. It’s a black and white flick – I can’t tell if the snow is yellow…but it’s dirty.

This is a Canadian production which is okay by me, but it means Smokey and Shadow bark in Canadian accents. It changes things in subtle, but disconcerting ways. Using the identical barks that Lassie employed to say; “Come quick! Timmy’s fallen in the well!” Shadow’s rescue-seeking bark is interpreted as; “Come quick! Mantan Moreland is trapped in a plane crash!” Frankly, I was baffled.

The film also features Dobie Gillis’ brother, Darrell Hickman as the “Timmy” character. I find most child actors to be quite moving and effective…and awful. Hickman simplified things by going straight to awful.

Dire Puppy

The film is based on the story by Jack London but that’s alright, Mr. London had died by the time this film was made so he didn’t get to see what happened to his story.


Then of course the snow fell for real at our house the next day and Chloe spent the next morning running around in the new, clean snow, barking in Canadian, and looking for plane crashes.

The neighbors fear she’s gone mad.